Harvard offers a wide range of courses on China and Chinese Studies from across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and professional schools. Check out our full guide to courses for undergraduate and graduate students for the Fall and Summer 2026 semesters below.
*More courses will be published over the summer. Below is what has been announced so far—please stay tuned for updates:
Language Courses
Harvard offers language courses at all levels in Chaghatay, Mandarin Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, and Uyghur through the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. Classical Tibetan and Colloquial Tibetan are offered through the Department of South Asian Studies. Other languages like Taiwanese/Southern Min are offered subject to petition and instructor availability.
For current details, be sure to check the Harvard Course Catalog: https://courses.my.harvard.edu/
Summer 2026: For Undergraduates and Graduate Students
| School | Course ID | Course Title | Course Description |
| HES/Harvard Summer School | GOVT S-1242 | Power and Politics in Greater China David A. Rezvani, DPhil (Resident Research Scholar and Lecturer, Dartmouth College) | This course introduces students to key concepts, actors, and events in the politics of China. The rise of China is one of the most important realities of the twenty-first century and has changed the world’s economic, political, and military realities. Does democracy or China’s current system of rule have bigger advantages? What are the key sources of China’s remarkable economic growth? What is the nature of accountability and informal institutions within the Middle Kingdom? In light of China’s policies toward Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and the South China Sea, is China a status quo or revisionist power? Students confront these and other pivotal economic, security, and global controversies. Students debate and assess the merits of China’s policies on issues such as the China model, economic growth, authoritarian resilience, decentralization, informal institutions, and media censorship, as well as the relations of China’s government with domestic, regional, and international actors. |
| HES/Harvard Summer School | GOVT S-1084 | The New Cold War: Navigating US-China Strategic Competition Seong-Hyon Lee, PhD (Associate, Harvard University Asia Center) | This course provides a comprehensive analysis of the escalating rivalry between the United States and China, framed as a new cold war. Moving beyond headlines, students explore the historical roots, economic drivers, and technological dimensions of the defining geopolitical contest of the twenty-first century. The course is designed to equip students with the analytical frameworks necessary to assess risk, identify opportunities, and understand the future of global power. Through rigorous reading, intensive discussion, and policy-oriented assignments, we examine critical case studies in trade, technology, military competition, and alliance politics. This course is intended for students and professionals in international relations, business, and policy who seek a deep, practical understanding of the world’s most important bilateral relationship. |
Fall 2026: For Undergraduates and Graduate Students
| Course ID | Course Title | Course Description |
| EASTD 196 | Political Geography of China Daniel Koss | Putting Chinese politics on the map, this course asks how the government deals with the enormous challenges of ruling over a vast terrain with a diverse population, encompassing super-rich urban metropolises as well as poor rural peripheries. We begin with statecraft traditions from the late imperial era; and end with China’s place on the future global maps of the 21st century. Topics include: macro-regions; priority zones of governance; Special Economic Zones; the Chinese equivalent of “blue states and red states;” rising inequality; ethnic minorities and borderlands; economic development models; urbanization and city planning; collective action in digital space; domestic and international migration; environmental politics; and the geo-politics of the “One Belt One Road” initiative. We will set aside class time for a hands-on introduction to producing and interpreting maps of China. |
| CHNSHIS 113 | Life and Death in Late Imperial China: Social History of the 10th to 19th Centuries Michael A. Szonyi | This course is a survey of the social and cultural history of China from the Song to the mid-Qing (roughly from 1000 to 1800). The main topics discussed include urbanization and commerce; gender; family and kinship; education and the examination system, and religion and ritual. The main goal of the course will be to explore the relationship between social and cultural changes and political and intellectual developments. |
| EAFM 151 | Documenting China on Film Jie Li | What defines a film as “documentary”? How do documentary films inform, persuade, provoke, or move us? Of whom, by whom, and for whom are documentaries made? Can documentary also be “propaganda” or “art”? What rhetorical devices and aesthetic strategies do documentaries use to construct visions of reality and proclaim them as authentic, credible and authoritative? What might documentary films—as opposed to written text—teach us about modern Chinese history and contemporary society? Above all, how would you go about making a documentary film, in China or elsewhere? In this course, we will examine documentary films made in or about China from the early 20th century to the present day, through the lenses of both Chinese and foreign filmmakers. We will interrogate the visual “evidence” that camera images can offer, look into their production and reception histories, as well as discuss the ethics, aesthetics, and politics of documentation, representation, and exhibition. Weekly topics are roughly grouped into three parts: (1) “Witnessing History” (2) “Social Reportage” and (3) “Art, Experimentation, and Fiction.” The first part will cover the cinematic history and memory of World War II, the Cultural Revolution, and the 1989 Tiananmen protests. The second part will explore documentary engagements with contemporary issues ranging from social inequality, migrant labor, forced demolitions, and environmental degradation. The third part will consider the art of observation, the potentials of experimentation, and the porous boundaries between documentary and fiction. Viewings of documentary films will be complemented by theoretical and contextual readings, as well as short assignments to engage critically and creatively with the films we watch. The final project for the course will be to make a documentary film in a small group. |
| HIST 1938 | China: An Infrastructural History Arunabh Ghosh | This course meets the “Beyond North America” History Concentration requirement or may be used to fulfill the seminar requirement. |
| GOV 1280 | Government & Politics of China Yuhua Wang | This course is a broad introduction to the main issues of contemporary Chinese politics and social change. The course is divided into two sections: the first section covers the period from the end of the last imperial dynasty to the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. The second section examines the last thirty years of economic reform, looking at both how the reforms began and how they were sustained. |
| CHNSLIT 134 | Strange Tales: The Supernatural in Chinese Literature Thomas Kelly | This course introduces students to traditional Chinese literature by focusing on “tales of the strange.” We will examine how ghosts, demons, fox spirits, and other liminal creatures haunt the literary imagination, stretching the possibilities of storytelling. Students will gain familiarity with masterpieces of Chinese literature and their intriguing afterlives in performance, film, and popular culture. Our discussions will consider how literary accounts of ghosts and the supernatural grapple with issues of gender and sexuality, the cultural meanings of death, the boundaries of human community, and the experience of historical trauma. We will focus on developing skills in close reading, while critically engaging theories of the “strange.” No background in Chinese is required. |
| TIBET 191 | An Introduction to Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Intellectual History Leonard van der Kuijp | Ever since the formal introduction of Indian and Chinese Buddhism in eighth century Tibet, the Tibetan acculurtaion and incultration of the various schools of thought created a very lively intellectual environment. This course seeks to tease out some of the major developments that took place from the eleventh to the nineteenth centuries.scholarship . |
| CHNSE 187 | Art and Violence in the Cultural Revolution Xiaofei Tian | Examines the cultural implications of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). We will examine how art was violent towards people and how violence was turned into an art. We will also consider the link between violence, trauma, memory and writing. Materials include memoir, fiction, essay, “revolutionary Peking Opera,” and film. |
| EASTD 143A | Digital Tools and Methods in East Asian Humanities: No-coding Approach Kwok-leong Tang | This course is designed for students in East Asian humanities with no prior background in digital literacy. It will introduce digital tools and methods used for the acquisition, transformation, analysis, and presentation of data. Coding is not required. Students completing the course will be able to integrate and apply the tools and methods into their research. Hands-on practices will be the major core of this course. Although students will expose to a wide range of tools, we use Konstanz Information Miner (KNIME), an open access analytics platform, as the axle of the course. Students will learn concepts and build workflows in different aspects of digital scholarship. Recommended Prep: Ability to read Chinese, Japanese, or Korean documents is required. Contact the instructor for further detail |
| TIBET 242 | Bod mkhas pa Mi pham rnam rgyal’s (1618-1685) History of Nag rtsis and Other Relevant Texts Leonard van der Kuijp | Tibetan sinitic astrology has barely been studied outside of the Tibetan region. As our point of departure, we will examine a short text on its history written by seventeenth century savant Bod mkhas pa. Thereafter, we will examine several of its earliest discussions. No auditors. Must be taken for a letter grade. |
| TIBET 245A | Readings in Tibetan Catalogs, Inventories, Histories (dkar chag) Leonard van der Kuijp | Of the many types of literary genres that were part of Tibetan literature broadly defined, the dkar chag is defintely the most flexible of all genres and can cover a wide range of treatises This course will examine the literary reach and range of the dkar chag as the gterm courses through the centuries of Tibetan literary activity. No auditors. Must be taken for a letter grade. |
Fall 2026: Primarily for Undergraduate Students
| School | Course ID | Course Title | Course Description |
| FAS | GOV 94YW | Comparative Political Development Yuhua Wang | This course examines the historical development of different political institutions in the world. Why did modern nation states and representative governments emerge in Europe? What was the path of political development in other parts of Eurasia, such as China and the Middle East? How did different political institutions influence economic development in the long term? We explore these big questions drawing materials from political science, history, sociology, anthropology, and economic history. A major course objective is to understand how the roots of political development in different countries connect with their politics and economies today. Class Notes: Please note that you must enter the Gov 94 lottery by 5:00 pm EDT on Tuesday, April 7 to enroll in this class: https://www.gov.harvard.edu/undergraduate/academics/concentration-requirements/gov-94-seminars/ . The lottery form will be active on April 1. Priority will be given to Government concentrators. |
Fall 2026: Primarily for Graduate Students
| School | Course ID | Course Title | Course Description |
| FAS | HISTSCI 2812 | China in the History of Science and Technology Victor Seow | This graduate seminar has been designed to prepare students to undertake independent research in the history of science and technology in China from the late nineteenth century to the present. To that end, it introduces students both to general trends in the relevant literature from the history of science and technology and adjacent social sciences as well as to various types of primary sources that can serve as the foundation for a scholarly contribution. Advanced proficiency in the Chinese language and some basic familiarity with the history of modern China required. |
| FAS | CHNSLIT 285 | The Literary Life of Things in China Thomas Kelly | This seminar investigates literary strategies for depicting and animating things in premodern China. We will trace the development of the principal genres for talking about objects, from yongwu poetry and riddle tales, to inscriptions, colophons, and manuals of taste. How, we will ask, have authors probed and reimagined human attachments to things. How have practices of collecting and connoisseurship transformed Chinese literary culture? How have objects been used to think about what it means to be human in the Chinese literary tradition. Our discussions will engage recent scholarship on materiality from the fields of literary theory and the history of material culture. The course will include viewing sessions in the Harvard Art Museums and Harvard-Yenching Library. |
| FAS | HIST 2639 | Histories of Modern China: Research Seminar Arunabh Ghosh | In this research seminar students will have the opportunity to explore new works in modern (twentieth century) Chinese history and develop and present their own research, culminating in a 25-35 page research paper. During the first half of the semester, each week is organized around a broad thematic area (social, cultural, economic, environmental, gender, science and technology, etc.). We will read a recent monograph and an article or two that speak to that theme. During the second half of the semester stduents will transition into working on their research papers, workshoping drafts and giving each other feedback. Designed for students working on their doctoral or masters theses, the course is open to anyone interested in writing a research paper using primary sources in Chinese (additional languages welcome too, of course!). |
| FAS | CHNSHIS 233R | Sources of Early Chinese History Michael J. Puett | Chronological survey of recently-discovered paleographic texts and received materials from the late Shang through the early Warring States period, with discussion of problems of contextualization. |
| FAS | CHNSLIT 285 | The Literary Life of Things in China Thomas Kelly | This seminar investigates literary strategies for depicting and animating things in premodern China. We will trace the development of the principal genres for talking about objects, from yongwu poetry and riddle tales, to inscriptions, colophons, and manuals of taste. How, we will ask, have authors probed and reimagined human attachments to things. How have practices of collecting and connoisseurship transformed Chinese literary culture? How have objects been used to think about what it means to be human in the Chinese literary tradition. Our discussions will engage recent scholarship on materiality from the fields of literary theory and the history of material culture. The course will include viewing sessions in the Harvard Art Museums and Harvard-Yenching Library. |
| FAS | CHNSLIT 267R | Topics in Tang Literature: Seminar Xiaofei Tian | This semester focuses on a series of canonic poetic and narrative texts from the late eighth and ninth century—the Mid Tang and Late Tang—and explores the changing values in literary, cultural, and intellectual history at this watershed time in the Chinese tradition. |
Fall 2026: Graduate School Courses
| School | Course ID | Course Title | Course Description |
| HLS | *(To Be Finalized on MyHarvard) | Engaging China William P. Alford & Steven Wang | This seminar will focus on the myriad of legal and related policy questions that are central to the U.S.-P.R.C. relationship. Earlier iterations of this class have addressed issues regarding trade, human rights, technology transfer, Taiwan, corporate governance, AI, climate change, corruption, foreign direct and portfolio investment, disability, the law of the sea, competing visions of law and development (as played out in Africa), and the role of lawyers. We anticipate covering many of these topics next fall. In addressing such topics, the seminar will examine the role that China has been playing in a world order in flux. We will consider, inter alia, China’s engagement of existing global norms, ways in which China may (or may not) now or in the foreseeable future be shaping such norms, and their impact on China and the rest of world. We will do so in a global setting, considering U.S. engagement of such norms, as well as that of selected other countries. We also anticipate two or more mock negotiations. |
| More Soon | *Check Later for Updates | *Check Later for Updates |